Emerson on Conservatism...

It had been a while since I had read "On Nature" or any other works by Ralph Waldo Emerson. But I happened across Emerson's 1842 lecture at a Masonic Temple and enjoyed it so much that I want to pass it along.

In the lecture, he weighs the battle between conservatism (in the old time sense) and innovation, from both the individual and societal perspective. I'm not one to use the term loosely, but it is brilliantly done with insights into both sides of the argument.

It's lengthy, difficult reading. But it's worth the time and energy.

Speaking of Mark Steyn...

I also found this post below to be amusing:

Think Globally, Cull Locally [Mark Steyn]


The anti-western anti-human totalitarianism of the environmental movement grows ever more explicit. I'm very sad to see my old friend Alex Renton reduced to peddling this sort of self-loathing claptrap:

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess...

In 2050, 95% of the extra population will be poor and the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today's standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis... As Rachel Baird, who works on climate change for Christian Aid, says: "Often in the countries where the birth rate is highest, emissions are so low that they are not even measurable. Look at Burkina Faso." So why ask them to pay in unborn children for our profligacy..?

But how do you reduce population in countries where women's rights are already achieved and birth-control methods are freely available? Could children perhaps become part of an adult's personal carbon allowance? Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?

After all, based on current emissions and life expectancy, one less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.

Speaking of genetic predispositions, Alex's dad was a Tory minister under Mrs Thatcher - whereas Alex would appear to be more comfortable with Soviet-style restrictions on freedom of movement: Agree to abort your kid and the state will get you a special exit visa for two weeks in Florida.

Even if you overlook the control-freak totalitarianism, the argument is drivel. Much of "the rich world", including three-fourths of the G7 (Germany, Italy, Japan), is already in net population decline. And in those parts that aren't, such as the United Kingdom, population growth is driven almost entirely by mass immigration: Those Bangladeshis with their admirably low emissions move to Yorkshire and before you know it develop a carbon footprint as big as your guilt-ridden liberal environmentalist's. Thanks to immigration, Britain's population is set to swell by 15 per cent., with attendant emissions increases. So why not call not just for compulsory sterilization but an end to immigration, too? Keep all those Bangladeshis in Bangladesh, where they can't destroy the planet. Ah, but that would all get a bit complicated for Guardian readers, wouldn't it?

Alex will get his way. Much of "the rich world" has essentially opted for voluntary extinction. The notion that the planet will be a much cleaner place left to the tender mercies of the Chinese pollutoburo, the new caliphate, and the exploding megalopolises of coastal Africa might strike many as somewhat fanciful. But no doubt the last three Guardian-reading liberal environmentalists extant will still reckon it's all our fault.

10/25 04:19 PM

For the conspiratorially inclined...

Perhaps to be filed under "Huh...." (To be read with tongue slightly in cheek):

Nuclear Fallout [Mark Steyn]

Strange developments at the Iranian nuke talks:

A British nuclear expert has fallen to his death from the 17th floor of the United Nations offices in Vienna.

The 47-year-old man died after falling more than 120ft to the bottom of a stairwell. He has not been named.

He worked for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, an international agency charged with uncovering illicit nuclear tests.

A UN spokesman in the Austrian capital said there were no "suspicious circumstances" surrounding the man's death...

Four months ago another UN worker also believed to be British fell from a similar height in the same building, it has been reported.

Hmm. I'd advise Mohammed El Baradei's surviving colleagues to take the elevator, but then again the aunt of Kofi Annan's discredited sidekick Benon Sevan fell to her death accidentally stepping into an empty elevator shaft shortly before she was due to be questioned about the Oil-for-Food scandal. If you work at the UN, get a gig on the ground floor.

Coincidence, presumably. Though I suppose one never knows. Link here.

With Apologies to Tyler Cowen

Scott Sumner, the smartest libertarian on the planet, takes up Matt Yglesias' challenge and offers his own multi-pronged market-based solution to reverse global warming. He proposes a temperature tax that prices all the negative externalities which contribute greatly to the Earth's warming.

Sumner's idea stipulates that if an activity like driving to work is the biggest factor in rising global temperatures, then that activity would be taxed accordingly. The flipside to this tax are subsidies given toward cutting-edge technologies which contribute to the cooling of the Earth. Companies that create technologies that reverse the warming trend would recieve subsidies in proportion to their contribution.

In a word, geoengineering.

A sample:

[A]s a good utilitarian I am going to use this blog platform to push two issues over the next few years. ... [M]y second obsession will be a global tax/subsidy scheme based on the impact of various activities on global temperatures. Not all activities, the gain isn’t worth the effort, but those activities that have a significant impact on the climate.

Speaking of Anita Dunn...

Here she is on the White House Media strategy of "controlling" the media (see video).

I don't find this particularly surprising or scandalous, but it's interesting.

On the permissibility of using Mao as an example...

By now, I assume you have heard about White House Communications Director Anita Dunn's speech in front of some school children in which she used Mao as an example for ignoring outside detractors and  "fighting your own war" to a successful conclusion on your terms.

Here's an excerpt of her quote:

“The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Tse-Tung and Mother Teresa. Not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is: You’re going to make choices. . . . But here’s the deal: These are your choices; they are no one else’s. In 1947, when Mao Tse-Tung was being challenged within his own party on his own plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army. . . . They had everything on their side. And people said ‘How can you win . . . ? How can you do this against all of the odds against you?’ And Mao Tse-Tung says, ‘You fight your war and I’ll fight mine . . . ’ You don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things. . . . You fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path.”

As far as the logic of her point goes (ie Mao certainly didn't listen to all the people who said he couldn't achieve), obviously her point stands.

Even so, it is a bit shocking to me that a senior White House figure would list a mass-murdering sociopath like Mao as "one of her favorite political philsophers." And whether or not her statement makes logical sense, it seems to me in poor taste to use a mass-murderer as one of two examples of people who more or less lived their dream on their own terms.

Mark Steyn captures better than I thoughts on these two ideas. You can read his recent column on it here.

Open and Massive Bigotry

It is difficult for me to describe how angry it makes me that society simply shrugs at the Rush Limbaugh/NFL affair.

That parasitic pieces of refuse like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and others can simply utilize fabricated quotations and bald face lies to impose their own intolerance and bigotry by making slanderous statements about a fellow citizen is an outrage; and it is an outrage that should stir to action not merely conservatives, but all people who believe in American democracy.

Quite simply none of the accusations made against Limbaugh can be defended with evidence. As someone who has listened to Limbaugh for as long as I can remember, I know the reason for this is because Limbaugh is simply not a racist. Anyone listening to him for any period of time talk about race would be well aware of that fact.

In the end, pond-scum like Sharpton know this of course. And the issue never was really "race" or "racism." It's about a greater argument: whether conservativism and conservatisms should be tolerated in American society. It's about the power of determining what thoughts are "permissible" in society. It's about oppression, intolerance, and bigotry. The issue is not about Limbaugh as a person; it's an attack on conservatives as free-thinking people. And in the macro sense, it's about all Americans who believe in freedom of thought.

I am tired of the perpetual protests and threats of boycotts against anyone who offends the sensibilities of the majority (or the organized minority); we are not a society dominated by a mob mentality. And I'm tired of the media letting (or seeking out) these high-priced extortionist destroy people's reputations and lives. And I'm tired of it being socially acceptible to malign conservatives as "bigots" and "racists" without needing the burdon of evidence; all of it occurring while those in a position to uphold and defend the ideas of a freedom of thought stand on the sidelines while a large number of people are slandered and abused.

I don't know of any public issue that has angered me personally more than this affair. I view it as an attack on me, and all people like me (defined in the only meaningful sense: in what one believes). I will be watching carefully to see how my liberal friends, and indeed all peoples who believe in protection of freedom of thought, will move to defend those who are being denied their rights.

Note: Edited for omitted words 12:06pm PST

Controlling Costs in a Universal Health Care System

Matt Yglesias of Think Progress is a strong proponent of a universal health care system. In this blog post, he examines what portions of current U.S. health care spending is attributable to different segments like administration, research and development, and drugs. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, he finds that insurance-related waste stemming from administrative costs in private insurance schemes comprises about 14% of overall waste, a much smaller figure than previously reported.

According to Yglesias, the biggest portion of waste in our system, what is called "excess spending," is devoted to “outpatient care.” A snippet:

We pay doctors more than other people do, our doctors order more tests than other doctors do, our tests are more expensive than other people’s tests, and we have many more relatively expensive specialists and relatively few relatively cheap GPs. And we have nothing to show for it.

The prospects for changing this, however, don’t look great to me. People don’t like insurance companies. Taking them on is popular. And nevertheless we see how difficult it is to really hurt their interests. Now imagine taking on the doctor lobby.

So how does a universal health care system cut up to 21% excess spending in outpatient care? Moreover, can this system reduce excess spending generally, like on administrative costs? Proponents of a universal health care system often point to Europe for the answers, which has found a way to increase coverage while minimizing costs.

On Megan McArdle’s blog, Asymmetrical Information, she tells us that the debate surrounding the important particulars of a U.S. universal health care system -- increasing coverage while minimizing costs -- runs afoul of both theory and experience. She says that cross-country comparisons are inappropriate and do little good in figuring how to curb costs here in this country. There is an ineluctable chasm between the U.S. and Europe; political structures and cultural mores are worlds apart. In a word, we’re just so much different than Europe. And here are a few reasons she says why:

· More wage inequality means doctors need to make more
· The American political system is especially easy to lobby

…

· American attitudes toward government: when told they can't have something they want, Americans do not say, oh, okay. They go on the news and call their congressman.
· Federalist and non-parliamentary democracy: in most other systems, the head of the government tells the government what to do. In our system, you need 220 congressmen and 50-60 senators. There's no way to implement the sort of technocratic change that reformers envision; the politicians will keep sticking their fingers in the pie.

Cross-country experiences may not be that informative. So what about theory? Can a national universal health care model draw important inferences from experiments done here in the U.S., at the state level, in what The Economist calls “fifty laboratories, one magic formula.” Are there state-level models proponents can look to? Is there a magic formula the federal government can adopt in order to increase coverage while also curbing costs?

Luckily, there's a lot that can be learned from Massachusetts' state-level universal health care model, which tries to insure all its citizens. Their experiment may be the best model we have to inform the theory that a universal health care system can both increase coverage and reduce costs. The question then becomes, does their mini-experiment include that magic formula?

Sadly, no.

Wendy Button, a former health care speech writer for Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, now lives in Massachusetts, and tells us that she cannot afford health insurance there. When moving from Washington, D.C. to Massachusetts, Button quickly realized that since adopting universal health care coverage, insurance premiums in Massachusetts have outpaced U.S. national averages. She is a self-employed writer who earns enough money to make her ineligible for Massachusetts care but not enough to afford to buy her own insurance.

The Commonwealth’s model of universal health care promised to do much of what the current federal universal health care bills being debated also promise. Massachusetts' mini-experiment has failed in at least one important respect: for self-employed people like Button, private insurance premiums have risen so fast that health care is simply unaffordable.

Here are some excerpts describing her distressing predicament:

While the state has the lowest rate of uninsured, a report by the Commonwealth Fund states that Massachusetts has the highest premiums in the country. ... The mandate means that some people who can't afford insurance are now being slapped with a fine they also can't afford. There is no “public option” in the way the president describes it, no inter-state competition, no pool for small businesses and self-employed individuals like me to buy into groups that negotiate cheaper rates.

...

What makes this a double blow is that my experience contradicts so much of what I wrote for political leaders over the last decade. That's a terrible feeling, too. I typed line after line that said everything Massachusetts did would make health insurance more affordable. If I had a dollar for every time I typed, “universal coverage will lower premiums,” I could pay for my own health care at Massachusetts's rates.

Both theory and evidence suggest that a government-run health insurance plan cannot increase coverage while curbing costs. Yglesias tells us that much of excess spending -- the much-maligned "waste" we often hear of -- stems mostly from choices American doctors and patients make in the delivery of health care. Whether it's a private insurance scheme or a state-level universal scheme, Americans simply demand much more health care, both in quantity and in price. McArdle says that looking toward Europe is a fool's errand, since the political and cultural structures are vastly different. And Button's story serves as a warning that in fact, the U.S. has a mini-model of universal health care that has failed to do what it set out to do.

So in what has to be the most important question posed in our health care debate, McArdle asks universal health care proponents:

[W]hy do you think that we can control costs, given that we couldn't at the state level? Massachusetts is a very liberal state, a very rich state, and it started out with a relatively low proportion of its citizenry uninsured. Proponents of reform often say it has to be done at a national level because states can't borrow money in downturns, but this doesn't explain why the spending side is headed through the roof. Why are you gazing past the cost control problems at home towards people who don't even speak the same language we do, much less share a political culture?

The Afghanistan Debate

I don't know nearly enough to have a firm opinion on what to do with Afghanistan, but I liked Frank Rich's column in the Times today (and it echoes our discussion of "victory" in the age of insurgencies):

If you listen carefully to McCain and his neocon echo chamber, you’ll notice certain tics. President Obama better make his decision by tomorrow, or Armageddon (if not mushroom clouds) will arrive. We must “win” in Afghanistan — but victory is left vaguely defined. That’s because we will never build a functioning state in a country where there has never been one. Nor can we score a victory against the world’s dispersed, stateless terrorists by getting bogged down in a hellish landscape that contains few of them.

Most tellingly, perhaps, those clamoring for an escalation in Afghanistan avoid mentioning the name of the country’s president, Hamid Karzai, or the fraud-filled August election that conclusively delegitimized his government. To do so would require explaining why America should place its troops in alliance with a corrupt partner knee-deep in the narcotics trade. As long as Karzai and the election are airbrushed out of history, it can be disingenuously argued that nothing has changed on the ground since Obama’s inauguration and that he has no right to revise his earlier judgment that Afghanistan is a “war of necessity.”

Those demanding more combat troops for Afghanistan also avoid defining the real costs. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the war was running $2.6 billion a month in Pentagon expenses alone even before Obama added 20,000 troops this year. Surely fiscal conservatives like McCain and Graham who rant about deficits being “generational theft” have an obligation to explain what the added bill will be on an Afghanistan escalation and where the additional money will come from. But that would require them to use the dread words “sacrifice” and “higher taxes” when they want us to believe that this war, like Iraq, would be cost-free.

Gustavo Takes the Stage

Twenty-eight year-old Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel made his debut as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall Thursday night. The premiere was met with all the fanfare, glamour and expectation befitting a king.

NPR was on hand to broadcast the event. The WSJ, NYT, and LA Times offer effusive praise. Some samples:

The result was a blaring crowd-pleaser to be sure, but in Mr. Dudamel's hands this well-known symphony, which he led without a score, became something more: a fresh and supple work. Textures were disarmingly transparent in the first movement. And if the conductor's pacing was measured (per the tempo markings), tension never flagged.

...

The payoff predictably came in the finale, which the conductor layered precisely, gradually increasing tension until what began intensely turned heaven storming. Yes, pushing the taunting brasses this way undercut their warmth, but the consequent thrill handily compensated

...

Mr. Dudamel, gyrating on the podium and in control at every moment, drew a cranked-up yet subtly colored performance of this challenging score from his eager players. He seemed so confident dispatching this metrically fractured work that I was drawn into the music, confident that a pro was on the podium.

...

Oct. 8, 2009, is not the date of a revolution in music. The day marks not even the dawn of a new era. What the Gustavo Dudamel gala Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall did mean for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, however, was an embrace of a new generation and cultural point of view, which is no small thing.

What's even more astounding than the level of intensity, the youth and the charisma Dudamel brings to this post is the reaction he elicits from the Los Angeles public. Many who were there that night revealed that they've never before been to a classical music concert; his new admirers readily admitted that they came only to see him.

By all accounts, it was a night to remember.

RE: That Nobel Prize

Berchmans hits the nail right on the head. He suggests that the Norwegian Nobel Committee may have selected President Obama for its 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in an effort to guide the president's thinking (and moral suasion) on the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's a bold political move, one that will resonate for a long time.

Yet one has to question whether the committee is risking losing credibility by conferring this prize to a sitting American president, particularly one who is commanding the efforts of these two wars. His choices concerning the American military presence in Afghanistan may indeed run counter to the spirit of the prize.

In accepting the prize, Obama's response was both graceful and shrewd. Here's a key example:

And even as we strive to seek a world in which conflicts are resolved peacefully and prosperity is widely shared, we have to confront the world as we know it today.

I am the commander in chief of a country that's responsible for ending a war and working in another theater to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies.

That Nobel Prize

Really bizarre, no? No doubt, President Obama can point to some diplomatic initiatives that may warrant the committee's praise, but his record is just not prize-worthy.

Two possibilities: a) the world has a sudden shortage of actual peacemakers, which I sorely doubt or b) the Norwegian committee hopes to preempt any further invasions or military action (against North Korea or Iran or wherever else) by laying the peace prize on Obama's conscience.

RE: Fulfilling Supply-side Economics

I also read David Leonhardt's piece in the NYT but thought it only decent. The bits surrounding Bruce Bartlett's "conversion" are illuminating. To be sure, Bartlett is a fascinating character; he is one of those few people that seems to care more about seeking the truth than about being right.

Some other parts of Leonhardt's piece however, left me nonplussed. Berchmans highlights one of those passages that left me scratching my head. For one, why does Leonhardt focus only on federal taxes in his effort to debunk a tenet of supply-side economics? He must realize that if the total tax burden were taken into account -- including state and local taxes -- his story rings hollow. In fact, according to a 2007 Heritage Foundation study, the total tax burden has risen steadily since the end of WWII.

So when he says that planned entitlement spending by the Obama administration must be paid for by raising federal taxes, "and history suggests that’s O.K.," he's wrong. History does not suggest a lick about our current situation.

And notice the little rhetorical device Leonhardt employs at the end of Berchmans' excerpt. He has us believe that "a century ago, federal taxes equaled just a few percent of G.D.P. The country wasn’t better off than it is today." Well, what does that even mean? How do we go about trying to disprove a vague notion like, "better off?" Cross-century comparisons do us very little good.

Leonhardt marshals some compelling evidence -- Bartlett's supposed conversion, federal tax rates in line with historical norms, we're somehow "better off" -- to create his narrative that higher tax rates are needed. Yet like all tall tales, a lot of the facts get left behind.

Two Vietnam Books For Afghanistan Debate

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have both noted the two Vietnam books that are all the rage in Washington these days as the Afghanistan debate heats up:

The two books -- "Lessons in Disaster," on Mr. Obama's nightstand, and "A Better War" on the shelves of military gurus -- have become a framework for the debate over what will be one of the most important decisions of Mr. Obama's presidency.

On Tuesday, in a White House meeting that went well over its allotted hour, Mr. Obama discussed the war with 31 members of Congress. Republican leaders, and some Democrats, pressed him to quickly accept the judgment of his commanders and send as many as 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But some Democrats asked if the war was winnable.

In Washington, books are flying off shelves. None of the major bookstores near the White House have the recently released paperback edition of "Lessons in Disaster" in stock, and one major shop in the Georgetown area, Barnes & Noble, said all its remaining copies were being held for buyers.

The impact of all the book-reading on the Afghanistan decision isn't clear. The administration's review of its Afghan strategy is expected to last until the end of this month, and views are likely to evolve. "A Better War" shaped the debate over the 2007 troop surge in Iraq: Military commanders and top Pentagon civilians pushed the book ardently on surge skeptics, winning important converts.

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), long an advocate of the narrative detailed in "A Better War," warned that while Vietnam may appear to have some parallels to Afghanistan, the better comparison is Iraq, where many of the same commanders now managing the Afghan war learned the value of surging more troops into a battle zone. "Vietnam fell to a conventional invasion of the North Vietnamese military," Mr. McCain said. "The closest parallel to Afghanistan today is Iraq, the strategies that succeeded and the generals that succeeded."

"Lessons in Disaster" entered West Wing circulation after Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, one of the top foreign-policy voices in the White House, gave it to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel after reading it himself.

Fulfilling Supply-side Economics

David Leonhardt has an excellent column on Bruce Bartlett's argument that Republicans have taken their opposition to taxes too far:

His conservatism starts with the idea that high taxes are no longer the problem, even if complaining about them still makes for good politics. This year, federal taxes are on pace to equal just 15 percent of gross domestic product. It is the lowest share since 1950.

As the economy recovers, taxes will naturally return to about 18 percent of G.D.P., and Mr. Obama’s proposed rate increase on the affluent would take the level closer to 20 percent. But some basic arithmetic — the Medicare budget, projected to soar in coming decades — suggests taxes need to rise further, and history suggests that’s O.K.

For one thing, past tax increases have not choked off economic growth. The 1980s boom didn’t immediately follow the 1981 Reagan tax cut; it followed his 1982 tax increase to reduce the deficit. The 1990s boom followed the 1993 Clinton tax increase. Tax rates matter, but they’re nowhere near the main force affecting growth.

And taxes are supposed to rise as a country grows richer. This is Wagner’s Law, named for the 19th-century economist Adolf Wagner, who coined it. As societies become more affluent, people demand more services that governments tend to provide, like health care, education and a strong military. A century ago, federal taxes equaled just a few percent of G.D.P. The country wasn’t better off than it is today.

The Day Finance Almost Died

Absolutely riveting. Andrew Ross Sorkin's piece in the November issue of Vanity Fair is a must read.

U.S. Sept non-farm payrolls plunge 263,000

The story of rising overall unemployment is clearly gaining a lot of attention. However, what's not been gaining much attention is another more pernicious story: that of rising unemployment among teen-aged workers.

An editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal argues that the increasing U.S. minimum wage has disproportionally hurt younger and lower-skilled workers. The teen unemployment rate now stands at 25.9%, its highest level since World War II. In Massachusetts alone, during the same period the minimum wage increased 88%, teen employment fell by a third.

What's more, the editors argue that there's something more sinister at play. Minimum wage hikes consistently gain the support of Congressional Democrats and their union allies. They say that they're needed to ostensibly help bolster the wages of the working poor. But of all full-time workers (those working a 40-hour or more work week), only 1.1% earn the minimum wage.

The editors say that when the "overwhelming" body of scientific evidence stands athwart the machinations of one of the Obama's administration's biggest lobbies, this evidence is cast by the wayside. Here's a sample:

Congress and the Obama Administration simply ignore the economic consensus that has long linked higher minimum wages with higher unemployment. Two years ago Mr. Neumark and William Wascher, a Federal Reserve economist, reviewed more than 100 academic studies on the impact of the minimum wage. They found "overwhelming" evidence that the least skilled and the young suffer a loss of employment when the minimum wage is increased. Whatever happened to President Obama's pledge to follow the science? Democrats prefer to cite a few outlier studies known to be methodologically flawed.

Is the minimum wage really only "helping" union wages, while damaging the earning potential of a generation of U.S. workers as the editors say? Stanford University economist John Taylor says that there's an economics lesson in here:

Re: Victory in Iraq

Sorry I've been away for so long, but I wanted to make two points about Esquire's point declaring victory in Iraq:

First, President Obama probably avoided using the word 'victory' because he learned a thing or two from President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" fiasco. No doubt the surge produced a fair amount of success (as did other parts of the "Sunni Awakening" strategy), but things are still far from settled in Iraq as the string of explosions this year proved. Besides, the victory discourse may not fit in the counter-insurgency context, as opposed to the Second World War that conservatives seem to re-fight in every conflict.

Secondly, I don't think counting the number of times a word occurs in a speech should count as political analysis. I don't know when it became en vogue, but "word clouds" rarely persuade me of anything. (This is just a general pet-peeve, not a crack at you, Esquire.)